The Wedding
by Miri1984
Summary: Fluff fic of Neria and Anders wedding.
1. Chapter 1

Anders had never been to a wedding, let alone had to organise one before. Neria… well Neria seemed to actually have some idea of what needed to be done, although where she'd managed to gain the knowledge he had _no _idea, although he suspected Felsi and possibly even the Queen had had something to do with it.

"We need to invite people," she was saying one evening, sitting on the bed in their quarters surrounded by papers.

"We need to what?"

'_Invite _people."

"Why? Everyone we know _lives _here. They're going to come anyway."

A muscle worked in Neria's jaw and he realised he was skirting along the edge of a precipice that probably had large amounts of pain at the bottom. She looked up and fixed him with dark eyes that he hoped were twinkling with humour and not… _malice._

"I was thinking Caron and some of the mages from Orlais might want to come. And Gaspare and the Antivan wardens too. Not to mention Dianora from the Free Marches. And surely you want Maeve and Jairo to come from Highever? Maybe Fergus and…"

"Maker's breath Neria!"

"You promised me a party, Anders," she said, cocking an eyebrow at him. "In any case, Sigrun was thinking of having a meeting of the wardens in Spring, it's not like they weren't going to be here anyway."

Humour. They'd been twinkling in _humour. _"Well, if they're going to be here any way, of course they should come," he said, smiling and breathing a sigh of relief. She grinned at him.

"You actually thought I was going to send out wedding invitations, didn't you," she said.

He bit his knuckle. "Since I have _no idea _how one does this…. I really didn't know _what _you were going to do."

"Says the man who has already been married…"

"Sweet Andraste, woman, stumbling into a Chantry at two in the morning with a drunk for a witness does _not _a wedding expert me make." Her laughter rippled through him and he stopped mid-rant. He pointed at her with a shaking finger. "You are enjoying this _far too much."_

She looked back down at her papers. "Of course I am," she said. "That's the whole point."

He crossed the room in two steps and grasped her shoulders, pulling her up to him and planting his lips on hers. Papers scattered across the bed and off. She resisted for a second, before melting against him and letting out a small moan.

This, _this _was why he was happy to go through with the teasing, the constant jokes from Oghren and lewd comments from Zevran. The feel of her, under him, around him. The fact that she responded like _this _when he touched her _there…_"You," she said, between gasps, "are trying to distract me…"

"Yup," he said, licking a slow stripe up one deliciously pointed ear. "Is it working?" He worked his fingers down her front, undoing buttons, brushing soft skin.

"Yes," she whispered. "But you can't do this all the time, you know…"

"Watch me," he whispered back. He slid her robes off her shoulders and pulled them down to her waist, trapping her arms by her sides. He dipped his head and tasted the skin just above the scrap of cloth that bound her breasts.

"Anders," she whispered, her low voice sending heat to his groin and making him repress a groan. He was in control here, he told himself, no need to let her get the upper hand by doing things… she managed to move her arm enough to brush against him… _like that_. He paused for a second, breathing deep, before continuing to nip and nibble, working her robes lower, to her hips, freeing her arms to come up and cup the back of his head.

He continued to work his tongue and teeth over her skin, enjoying her sighs and moans. Once he'd freed her from her robes he backed her onto the bed, lying her down without taking his lips from her skin. She was panting a little now, and he smiled to himself as he completed the task of undressing her, slipping his fingers under her smallclothes and working them off. She was looking at him now, her dark eyes even darker, if possible, black with desire and feeling. It was all he could do not to strip himself naked and plunge into her immediately, but there was no way he wanted it to end that quickly and he settled himself between her thighs instead, letting his breath tickle the hair there before pressing his tongue into her wet heat.

The gasp that she let out was like a jolt of electricity to his groin and he moaned into her as he worked his tongue, taking his cues from her increasingly frantic movements and noises. Her hands tangled in his hair, pulling it free of its tie and he felt her strong fingers digging into his scalp as her hips bucked frantically against him. He held her hips down as he worked faster, drunk on the sound of her voice and the feel of her skin and the _smell _and the _taste _of her arousal. Power started to crackle in the air and he knew she was close. He used two fingers to enter her and press upwards _just so, _targeting a small spark of magic at the same time and she _shrieked _his name, clenching around his hand hard. The air went hazy as she lost control of her power and languor settled on his limbs despite his urgent desire.

"Best pull that in a little, my love," he whispered as he stretched out beside her on the bed. She had her eyes closed and her mouth, soft and relaxed, open, still panting for breath. "Unless you want people wondering why it takes twice as long to get down this length of corridor. She gasped a giggle and there was a snap in the air as she sucked her miasma back. "I do wonder sometimes, why you default so readily to entropy."

"I like to slow things down," she said, reaching out a hand and lazily trailing it down the front of his robes. He captured it and kissed it, but she tutted and pushed him back, swinging her leg over his waist and settling down on his _extremely obvious _and now _agonisingly trapped behind the cloth of his clothing _erection. She started to rock back and forth on him.

"You're… going to.. _ah…_ ruin my robes," he gasped out.

She stopped abruptly and he let out a groan. "I'm terribly sorry," she said. "Should I get off then?"

He growled and tried to grab at her shoulders, intending to pull her off him so he could at least get himself free, but there was a flare of power and he was frozen, the white rings of paralysis trapping him stretched out on his back with his hands in the air. She grinned wickedly at him and started working on his buckles, slowly, oh, so slowly, her small breasts swinging as she occasionally leant forward to nip at his neck or kiss his ear.

It was torture.

He loved it.

She eased his clothing off with a bit of difficulty that had her catching her lower lip between her teeth in concentration. He wished he could laugh, or kiss her, or do _something _that would ease the overpowering ache of wanting her, but there was something delicious about being helpless where he was as she moved over him, little brushes of her smooth skin against his, feathery touches of her fingers and occasionally her lips and tongue and teeth that had him shouting internally.

When he was naked she straddled his knees, and dipped her head down to capture him in her mouth. For the first few sucks he remained frozen, but the edges of the spell unravelled as she worked him. When his arms were free he buried his fingers in her hair and let his eyes drift closed. When his hips were free he had to fight not to buck up into her mouth.

She clambered up him, grinning, and positioned himself over him. He grinned as she sank down, then gasped as she started to rock her hips again. Slowly, ever so slowly, but he was on such a knife edge of desire and denial that he didn't _need _speed. She closed her eyes and tipped back her head, her skin shiny with sweat and flushed with heat and he shouted his release as it overcame him, clutching her hips hard and throwing his head as far back as it could go.

She flopped forward onto his chest and he stroked her back, heaving a sigh. "I'm going to ask Wade to help me design the dress," she said after a moment. "But you're not allowed to see it until the wedding day. Just so you know."

He pinched her bottom and laughed helplessly.


	2. So why didn't you ask her?

"So… why didn't you ask _her?" _

"What?" Jowan was reading a book in the library with her - companionable silence - the way it had been back in the Tower. He was at a particularly interesting bit about combining spirit and ice spells and hadn't _really _wanted to be interrupted.

"Why did you ask _her _to help you escape?"

_Ah. _This question was _always _going to come up. He was amazed it hadn't come up sooner, to be honest.

"You mean Maggie."

"Of course I mean Maggie."

Jowan closed his book. Perhaps… an appeal to vanity? He was going to have to tread carefully, here, he knew, especially given Neria's recent activities involving a certain blond mage and a giant spider. "Do you seriously think she could have helped me better than you?"

She saw straight through that one, of course. One delicate eyebrow arched up and he grinned, sheepishly.

"Ok, seriously then. She was never the most reliable person, you know that. The amount of trouble that woman could cause with nothing more than a health poultice and a spare set of robes…"

"She would have helped you though."

"Of course she would have. If I could have found her. If she wasn't…" _careful, Jowan,_ "…busy at the time. If I didn't think she'd take one look at Lily and call her a fat cow…" Neria looked speculative and Jowan raised a finger. "She _wasn't _- don't look at me like that."

"You always had dreadful taste," Neria smiled. She'd investigated for him, he knew, once she became a Warden. Tried to find out what had happened to her. But the rumours all pointed to The Aeonar, and not even the Wardens knew where the mage prison was. It was much better to think of her as dead.

It still hurt, though, remembering her face when she'd seen him use blood magic. For six years that pain had been locked away from him. It hadn't gotten better.

"So yes," he said, pushing his thoughts to the side. "I would have asked Maggie, save that she was heavily involved at the time and…"

"Involved?"

"You know… Maggie? Involved?"

"Oh," Neria's eyes narrowed and he held his breath, wondering if he'd given away too much. The timeline was wrong, for Neria to know about _who _Maggie was involved with - it was one of those times they were being _discreet _about it…

"So, yes, I could have asked Maggie, but if you were given a choice between her and… well… _you…_ "

"Naturally _I _would choose me," she said, laughing a little. "But magically she and I are a pretty even match."

"She would have icestormed everything," Jowan said, laughing with her. "Not _nearly _as discreet as a few well timed sleep spells. The Templars would have caught us before we even _got _to the storeroom."

* * *

He found Anders down in the mage training arena, with Helena, the shapeshifting expert. As a switch, it was Anders who was getting drilled about his lack of talent.

"Look, do you think I _like _having to be naked to do this?" he was saying.

Helena grimaced. "Yes, actually, I think that's _exactly _the problem…"

Anders looked up and grinned as Jowan approached. "Here to save me from embarrassment?" he said.

"You actually know what that word _means?"_

"Helena could you give us a moment?" he looked at the tattooed woman, who flung her hands in the air and rolled her eyes.

"Please, take him away."

Anders grinned at her and Jowan pulled him to the side of the arena. "What was that all about?" Jowan asked him.

Anders plucked at his robes. "I can't transform cloth," he said. "Means I have to be naked when I shapeshift. Helena…" he looked over to where the woman was talking to another of the Warden mages. "She thinks I'm doing it deliberately."

"Are you?"

"Of course not! I'm a nearly married man, I'll have you know."

"Yes. Well. That's what I wanted to talk to you about actually."

"Oh?"

"Neria was asking me… ah… why I didn't ask _Maggie _to help me when I was trying to get out of the Tower."

Anders raised an eyebrow. "So?"

Jowan sighed. "You know, sometimes I wonder how you and Maggie manage to _interact _with other _human beings."_

"Maggie? Oh.. _Oh."_

"Just, don't let it slip to her what you were up to, all right?"

"Are you kidding? I like all my bits where they are thank you very much. One afternoon in the cage with Bessie was _more _than enough."

"She never used to be this crazy," Jowan mused.

"Neria? She's always seemed on the sane side to me."

"She used to be… a lot _more _sane. You remember her from the Tower, right?"

"Sure. Nose buried in a book most of the time. Always had her hand up in class. Cute, but deathly dull."

"That's your future wife you're talking about."

"No, that was someone who would eventually become my future wife. Granted, she wasn't the type I was interested in back then, but I was different too. My _actual _future wife.." Anders frowned for a moment, " Neria _now, _is a lot more interesting than the girl I remember from the Tower." Anders leaned against the wall and sighed. "Stuff happens. People change. After you left - well, I didn't see what she went through - I was clapped in solitary after all. But I can't imagine it was good. And then when you came back to the Tower after the rebellion…"

Jowan shuddered, remembering her face. She'd managed, somehow, to get to see him as they were taking him to the ritual. He hadn't been able to talk to her, just seen her standing there…

… It was one of his final memories, before they'd laid the brand into his skin.

"Maker, I was such a fool," Jowan said.

Anders put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, don't blame yourself. She doesn't blame you."

"She should. And you said it yourself - she's changed. If it wasn't for me…"

"She'd still be stuck at the Tower, reading. And I wouldn't be getting married. And _you… _"

"Good point," Jowan forced a smile. "Any way. No mentioning that you were in a cupboard with Maggie Amell on the day I decided to ruin my life, ok?"

Anders held out his hand and Jowan clasped it warmly. "You have my word," Anders said, smirking.


	3. What do you have there?

"What do you have there?"

"A letter from Cullen!"

"He _writes _to you?"

She gave him _a look. _"Of course he does. We're friends. And that old circle habit of checking the incoming mail of mages doesn't apply to him, he's the Knight Commander now."

"Is he writing you _love letters? _Because, you know, Lake Calenhad isn't that far away, and I've been practicing that new fireball spell Fiona taught us…"

She raised her eyebrow at him, a small smile playing around her lips. "I won't tell you if you're going to be difficult," she said.

"Difficult is it?" he growled, leaning over the desk and trying to snatch the letter out of her hands. She shoved it into the bodice of her robe, which only encouraged him, and he clambered over the desk and plunged one hand into it while she giggled and gasped.

"Got it!" he said triumphantly, and scooted back towards the fireplace to read it.

She made no move to follow him, which told him immediately that Cullen wasn't writing her saucy letters (and why _wasn't _he - for the sake of the Maker - the poor boy _needed _an outlet) but he caught one word on the first page that had him totally absorbed within seconds…

_Phylacteries._

"Is he certain?" Anders said after a moment.

Neria was sitting behind her desk with one tiny foot propped on it and her arms folded across her chest. "Seems that way," she said, then grinned. "We can get them _both. _Oh, and we could probably get Branwen's and Armand's - sod it, we could get _Maggie's _at the same time.

"You want to do something _nice _for Maggie?"

"Why not? She'd owe me one then. Always handy to have an extremely powerful ex of your husband's on your good side."

"It would make a very nice wedding present," he said, grinning.

"Take Jowan with you," she said. "He loves seeing phylacteries smashed."

"Oh, I'm bringing them back here," Anders said. _"Everyone _gets to smash their own."

* * *

He crouched, with Jowan on one side and Zevran on the other, outside the warehouse in Highever. There were guards on the doors - guards on the roof, guards pretty much everywhere.

"Looks like this is the real deal this time," Anders said.

"What makes you say that?" Jowan asked.

"Well, last time there weren't any guards."

"You've done this before?"

"Just the once. Ended in the timely death of one Ser Rylock."

"You killed _Rylock?"_ Jowan sounded impressed.

"Well, not exactly. The Commander did. But I certainly helped."

"Nice _work."_

"We do our best."

"If you two would pay attention to the task at hand," Zevran said, "we need to formulate a plan."

"Oh, come on Zev," Anders said, grinning. "Are you telling me you haven't already?"

The Antivan raised an eyebrow and Jowan chuckled. "Of course he sodding has," Jowan said.

* * *

He grumbled. It _was _winter. But he had to admit, it was the best way to do this. The Templars wouldn't feel the magic until it was too late to stop him, and as long as the initial transformation happened far enough away from the warehouse they wouldn't feel that either. Zev was kind enough to let him go back to the inn to go through with it, though. "We should have brought Neria," he muttered as he took off his shirt. Zev was standing in the doorway, although Jowan had stayed at the warehouse to keep watch. "Why are you still here?" Anders said. Zev lifted an eyebrow.

"I merely wished to be certain you didn't require any assistance, _mio caro."_

"You just wanted to ogle me," Anders said, grinning. The Antivan spread his arms.

"That too," he said.

"I'll tell Sigrun on you," Anders said, waggling a finger.

"Oh, she and I have been discussing this for years," the grin on Zev's face was wicked and Anders found himself laughing.

"It's a pity you weren't around before Neria joined us," Anders said, "I might have been more inclined to indulge you."

Zev's eyebrows lifted. "Oh _il mio bel mago _why did I have no idea?" he said.

Anders winked at him and removed his breeches. "Turn your back Assassin," he said. "Or you'll have a very angry Neria after you when we get back to Amaranthine."

"Pish," Zev said. "She need never know."

"She _always _knows."

"True."

Once Zev had turned around Anders removed his smallclothes and started to concentrate. The transformation process was difficult, but he'd been getting better at it. He didn't think he'd ever manage to master as many forms as Neria, however, but he was happy with his hawk form. The ability to roam free in the air around the Keep was something that _never _paled.

A moment later and Anders was gone, in his place, a fine, dark eyed bird. He let out the chirrup which was the only sound he could make now and Zev turned, nodding. It was time.

* * *

The window shattered with a satisfactorily small tinkling sound. Chances were with the Templars all in their bucket helms no one would even have registered it. Zevran checked to make sure there were no jagged edges that might impede the bird's flight, and Anders flew through as fast as he could. Even if the Templars had seen him enter, they would not make the connection between the bird and magic, at least, not until it was too late.

He had to remain in bird form to find the phylacteries. The transformation back to human would alert all the Templars to his presence. But hopping through rooms as a bird wasn't particularly easy, there wasn't really enough room to fly and hawk vision wasn't the best for seeing indoors. He could never get used to having to cock his head from side to side.

Typical, though, that the Templars had put guards everywhere _outside _the building, but bothered with none on the inside. He hopped from room to room and found no one.

Until he reached the room he wanted.

Crates and crates of them. He felt his beak drop. There was no way he would be able to discover his and Neria's phylacteries amongst so many. _Maker's breath - it's ALL the Ferelden mages! _He had to stop himself from squawking in excitement. Sure, the circle was less strict now. Sure, they'd probably just make new phylacteries for all the mages who were still imprisoned, but this _THIS _was a blow to the Chantry that felt almost as good as surviving his reaving had done.

He quickly transformed back into human. A good firestorm would burn this place to cinders. Jowan was standing ready to offer his services as a mage to put out the fire before it spread, but not before it managed to destroy _all of these._

He lifted his arms and began to cast.

* * *

"What happened to your eyebrows?" Neria asked, after she'd given him a hello kiss that was enthusiastic and extremely pleasant.

"I was a little clumsy transforming back into a hawk," Anders said sheepishly. They were singed. His vanity hurt, but it had been worth it.

"You destroyed _all _of them?"

Jowan was beaming all over his face. Anders couldn't help but do a little jig of excitement.

"Consider it my wedding present to you, Neria," Anders said. She giggled and threw her arms around him.


End file.
